The Meaning of Christmas

Levy Abad Jr.

Nov. 28, 2011 (The Diversity Times, Dec 2016, Vol.5 No.12 )

courtesy of parol

Everytime Christmas approaches, it immediately reminds me of the birth of Jesus (Yeshua), the Messiah. Of course, we grew up with the idea that he was born on the 25^th of December. But let us look at what David H. Stern's Jewish New Testament Commentary says regarding the matter. “The Bible does not say when Yeshua was born, perhaps as a prophylactic against our worshipping the day instead of the One who is worthy. But it is interesting that the early believers in the Messiah apparently saw a link between Chanukkah and the birth day of the Messiah: the one is concerned with an earthly building, the other with the living Temple of God who came down from Heaven----for Yeshua himself made the comparison when he said,``Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up again”(John 2:19). So, since the end of the third century, December 25, the Roman calendar date corresponding to Kislev 25, has been the generally accepted date for Christmas in the Western churches (the Greek Orthodox observe January 6, the Armenians January 19). Kislev is the third month of the civil and the 9^th of the religious year, usually coinciding with parts of November and December (Oxforddictionary.com). Anyway, the date of the birth of the Messiah, whether found in the scripture or not, is not my main concern. My focus is on the nature of the Messiah. In the New Testament (Brit Chadashah), Jesus always addresses YHVH (I Am That I Am ) as Abba or Father countless times. All of us believers grew up with the basic catechism that YHVH is indeed the Father of Jesus and that Mary (Miriam) conceived him through the power of the Holy Spirit (Luke 1:28,30-35, 37-38). This spiritual and historical event is uplifting for the fundamental reason that the Father of Jesus is the God who liberated and redeemed the ancient Israelites from their Egyptian captivity through the Exodus, and up to the struggle led by Joshua to reach Canaan or Promised Land. The Father of Jesus is the creator of the world, a Liberator and a Redeemer. Liberator, because God made his manifestations in history and led the Israelites out of bondage or slavery, and Redeemer, because God made the event sacred to be remembered forever as a sign of his Grace and Faithfulness. This act of God the father in history is a paradigm of deliverance through the Israelites and to the nations alike as promised to Abraham.

 The story of Mary shows her reverence to God. Most Christians do realize that when the Angel of the Lord appeared to Mary to announce, “Hail, Mary, full of grace the Lord is with you” and also “Blessed is the fruit of your womb, Jesus,” she was overwhelmed and was initially confused, but wholeheartedly accepted her role with the deepest obedience. It was at this instance that Mary joyfully recited the Magnificat as her song of praise: “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my saviour, for he has looked on the humble estate of his servant. For behold, from now on, all generations will call me blessed; for he who is mighty has done great things for me, and holy is his name. And his mercy for those who fear him from generation to generation. He has shown strength with his arm; he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts; he has brought down the mighty from their thrones and exalted those of humble estate; he has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he has sent away empty. He has helped his servant Israel, in remembrance of his mercy, as he spoke to our fathers, to Abraham and to his offspring forever” (Luke1:46-55 ESV). Surely, this prayer is engrained in the heart of Mary and the liberating and redeeming ideas contained in this prayer were told by Mary to his son Jesus, the Messiah, who will eventually be crucified out of his obedience to the Father.  

In discussing the life of Jesus, we cannot fail to mention Joseph. Joseph, son of David, the husband of Mary, became the father of Jesus in his temporal existence. Jesus grew up knowing Joseph, his father, as an ordinary carpenter by trade. One of the greatest characters of Joseph is his obedience to what the angel of the Lord told him to do, as written in Matthew 1:20-25, “But after he had considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. 21 She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus (Yeshua). Because he will save his people from their sins.” 22 All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet: 23 “The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel” (which means “God with us”). 24 When Joseph woke up, he did what the angel of the Lord had commanded him and took Mary home as his wife. 25 but he did not consummate their marriage until she gave birth to a son. And he gave him the name Jesus” (NIV).

Finally, we come to the nature of the Messiah, and compare it with some of the great scriptural themes that characterize his roots (Mary and Joseph) and his spiritual origin, God. In Luke 4: 18-19, Jesus reads from the scroll of Isaiah in the synagogue of Capernaum: The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour (ESV). This quotation from Isaiah, if read with the Exodus in mind, the activities of Jesus during his ministry from healings to his prophetic pronouncements, with the history of the struggle for freedom of peoples at heart, sets the tone for its correct definition. Any deliverance from God, as far as the Scripture is concerned, occurs in the world as his divine milieu. Deliverance is always liberative and redemptive. The radical obedience up to the Crucifixion of Jesus is the culmination of his obedience and subversive activity. Subversive in the sense that in due time, the Roman Empire will crumble when the seeds that Jesus sowed grew and bore fruit.  Posing the idea that He is the way, the truth and life or the Scripture incarnate, constitutes the ultimate act of obedience by initiating the will of God “on earth as it is in Heaven” thus turning asunder the rule of darkness .

Hence, reflecting on the faithfulness of God, the obedience of Mary  and Joseph to the plan of God to tabernacle in history and also to the millennial process of sowing the seeds of  love, hope, justice , mercy and compassion towards building the “new earth and new heaven” with its concomitant demands of forgetting oneself through radical obedience as Jesus did, I humble and criticize myself for all the times that I placed my interest first instead of wholeheartedly waging struggles for justice against the spiritual and social structures of evil in this world. This for me is the meaning of Christmas. To my family, relatives and friends, Merry Christmas!